Day Twenty-Four | March 21 Prayer TWENTY-FOUR

Legendary Coach Bud Wilkinson served as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1947 to 1963, compiling a record of 145–29–4. During his time there, the Oklahoma Sooners won three national championships (1950, 1955, and 1956) and 14 conference titles. Between 1953 and 1957, Wilkinson’s Oklahoma squads won 47 straight games.

The 1950s were a di erent time. During the football season, Coach Wilkinson would have his quarterback move into his house for the season. The coach and player became like father and son. They lived under the same roof, ate meals together, they rode to practice together, and studied plays together. They spent time studying film, diagramming plays, and talking football continually.

Someone once asked the coach why he did this. He responded: “Because if that young man spends enough time with me, he will begin to think like I think. And then when he gets out on that field, he will know what I want him to do.”

That is the very heart, the very essence of prayer: to spend time with Jesus. He sustains us through our times of prayer. What if we thought of prayer as having a sta meeting with Jesus? It should never be a monologue, but a conversation. Our goal is to listen and sense what Christ is saying to us. We should strive for His thoughts to be in us, so that instinctively, when we go out in the game of life, we will do what He wants us to do.

This prayer can help us receive our marching orders:

Amen.